


is this a love story or an identity crisis

by speedie



Category: Marvel (Comics), Moon Knight (Comics), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: (also the shit mental health institution thanks freud), (and by that i mean marc gets misdiagnosed with schizo bc it's. like. the early 1900s), (dw he gets an Accurate Diagnosis from The Future so he'll be fine i love comix bullshit), (he'll get coping mechanisms dw dw dw), Aggressive House Cleaning, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Noir, Black Marc Spector, DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder, Drinking, Homoeroticism, M/M, Mental Illness, Multiverse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period Typical Ableism, Slow Burn, Sometimes Things Explode and It's An Uh-Oh but Also a Catalyst for Romantic Bonding, Spider-Verse, Trans Male Character, Trans Peter Parker, Wound Tending, revival, updates regularly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:28:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24938317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speedie/pseuds/speedie
Summary: Peter comes back to life.  Turns out vigilantism has become popular in the past four years, god help us all.Or, well.  God help Peter Parker, at least.(Noir comes back a la Spider God BS from his death in Spider-Geddon and tries to catch up.  Marc Spector doesn't know how to flirt and it comes off really weird.  My god, these bitches clueless gays.)
Relationships: Gwen Stacy/Mary Jane Watson (Background), Peter Parker/Marc Spector
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: Team Red Pride Bang





	is this a love story or an identity crisis

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all. The canon Noir timeline is all over the place and I'm not fucking with it, I'm NOT. Look at this shit y'all.
> 
> Origin story: 1933  
> Noir eyes without a face: 1933 but in september  
> Spiderverse event: 1939  
> Enters spidergeddon only to die: 1940  
> Is revived: 1933  
> Spiderman noir 2020: 1939
> 
> Like, hello? Hello??!!? Noir are you trapped in a lazy river of time!!??!!
> 
> Anyways, for sake of ficstuffs, I'm gonna have the events of origin to spider-geddon happen from the 30s to 1935. Four years of death. Gets revived in 1939. Also, hashtag my canon now and all that jazz.
> 
> also, this work is part of a team red pride bang. art will be embedded in chapter 4 <3 if ur mean to me abt historical accuracy btw i will cry on u i read too much and it's all sliding out of my brain like a bushel of slippery butter noodles in my arms

“Who are you?”

If there was any indication that time had passed since his death, it wasn’t in Felicia’s apartment. There were still cats crawling around by the dozens, mewling and pawing about. Keeping each other company. Keeping Felicia company. 

Felicia had changed, though. Seemed to thrive with time, if he had to assume. For one thing, she wasn’t wearing her mask. Last he heard of her, she kept to herself as much as she could, shielding herself with a mask. 

Now, her scars were on full display. 

It was the first time he’d seen them. They were jagged, like uneven seams torn against patchwork skin. Dry red against pale white. Her eyes burned cold as they ever were behind the mask, too, if not more. She narrowed them at him when he arrived, brows furrowed fierce. She was suspicious of him, boiling with the thought of some grifter soiling the name of her long-gone, one-time fling. Somewhere, in her snarl and her burning gaze, he’d found relief in that.

“Felicia,” he managed to rasp from her chokehold on him. “It’s Peter.”

She softened, then stiffened with a grimace. His breath hitched beneath the pressure of her tightening fingers, wrapping around his neck and tightening her hold. He felt like he was dying. That was fine. Spidey Sense seemed to be okay with the blatant whittling of his life span. Still, he found himself instinctively reaching for her hands with clutching fingers.

Dame still had a grip on her. It was good to know she hadn’t lost it. He could feel her nails digging into him, sharp like claws. They grazed his neck when he tugged at her wrists. Good thing he kept the mask on; it had led to a less than warm welcome, sure, but those claws would have left unpleasant marks if they found his skin.

“Peter is  _ dead, _ she seethed through gritted teeth. “I’ll ask one more time. Answer. Who  _ are _ you?”

He struggled to breathe.

It felt damned good to be alive again.

She allowed him to heave some air. Better make it quick before he learns what else she’s raring to do. White Widow’s exact modus operandi wasn’t his priority, considering.

“Find out,” he gasped. His voice felt hoarse as it spilled out his throat, upstream against a gulp of air. “Take off the mask and find out.”

She cut off his air again, pushing her bare face down against his. “Do it yourself.”

His hands reached up above hers. He pulled the mask up against her deathgrip. And, when Felicia’s nails grazed away from his neck to engulf him in a hug, he returned the favor. He bowed his head down into her neck.

This was the first human contact Peter Parker had since he woke up. The first in apparently four years, he’d been informed, since he left to die in a war for something more than a little city in a little universe.

Four years.  _ Horsefeathers. _

“One of your comrades informed me.”

She hadn’t apologized. She hadn’t needed to.

“Which one?” he asked, nursing the drink she offered him.

“Blonde, young. She  _ sounded _ like New York, but… not quite.”

Gwen. Who else had she told?

“Your aunt. And MJ. I don’t suggest going home anytime soon -- your aunt didn’t exactly  _ like _ the news she gave her.”

“I have to.” He set the glass down firmly, standing with every intent to leap off the balcony. “I’m the only family she’s got left--”

“--and, in case you forgot, Spider-Man, you lied to her.”

Right. Betrayal wasn’t something to take lightly. He’d shot a man dead in their own home after all, nevermind the fact that it was a cannibal.

“We’ll figure it out, then,” he insisted. “Reach an understanding.”

Felicia snorted. “Sure. Come out of the blue, impulsively, without a plan.  _ That’ll _ work out.”

He sunk back into his chair.

“Then what am I  _ supposed _ to do? I don’t have anywhere to stay. Even if I could get someplace, I’m supposed to be  _ dead." _

“Or missing.” She shrugged. “You didn’t exactly leave a body to bury, Pete. Spider-Man, either. People took it upon themselves to fill in for your absence.”

“Felicia, you didn’t have to--”

“You really think I’m the only one?”

“What, did Daredevil leave Hell’s Kitchen?”

Felicia cocked a smile at him over her shoulder, laughing. Then she turned around to face him entirely. 

“Pete,” she cooed, words dripping with playful, sickly sweetness. “You started a  _ trend, _ silly boy.”

-

  
  


Before he died, the only other vigilante that the papes liked to harp on and on about was Daredevil.

Spider-Man’s general rep was that of a gun-toting menace -- props to the  _ Daily Bugle _ \-- when Peter had first started out. Then he watched the Goblin, a circus freak mob boss with too much power in his hands, die in a sewer. J. Jonah Jameson decided to be a little less harsh on him after that, what with the life-saving and the blackmail-destroying. Things ran a bit more smoothly since then.

Daredevil, in contrast, had a constantly shifting sort of storyline in the papes. One week he was delivering vigilante justice that was a long time coming, and he was praised as the defender of the powerless people. The next, he was an unchecked criminal; he was a self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner. That last accusation was a little fishy, considering he’d never been confirmed to have actually killed anyone.

That was the impression Peter got from all the kids shouting the same headlines from every other sidewalk, anyway. The Bugle’s idea of Daredevil was something of a more objective nature. It was hard to turn a man of grit and integrity like Jameson towards unfounded accusations these days, especially without the endless contingencies the Goblin had on hand. Thank god for that. On the other hand, though, the Bugle wasn’t ultimately all too interested in the Daredevil of Hell’s Kitchen. There were more stories out there that didn’t involve endlessly going on and on about the same vigilante every day, and it was pointless to. The motto was to  _ Make ‘Em Weep! _ and Daredevil didn’t always fit that particular qualification.

Investigative journalist that he was, it was easier to ask around.    
  


Daredevil wasn’t hard to find. Asking just about anybody about Daredevil and who he was, given that they were willing to spill, would grant you the answer that he was very clearly, very obviously Matt Murdock. 

As a kid, he watched a trigger man fill his dad with lead. Then he got his head bashed in against the pavement for his trouble. The big oaf must’ve thought that was that, because Murdock had ended up surviving with scarred and indented eyes to his name. Not that it mattered that he lived anyway; he wasn’t fit to identify any kind of suspect.

Newly orphaned, he survived by performing death-defying acts for the public, proudly toting the given title of Daredevil. He supposedly quit by the time he grew out of all that fame and novelty. 

Matt Murdock worked for a gumshoe by the name of Franklin Nelson, who started his practice because lawyering wasn’t going so great when nobody had any dough to afford one. A few folks did, however, have money for a P.I., and the law degree sweetened the pot enough to attract clients like flies. Or, at the very least, it paid a few more bills than the lawyer thing did.

  
Around the same time, the vigilante known as Daredevil starts making headlines. When the same moniker pops up in the same part of town, it turns out it ain’t so hard to add two and two for four. Daredevil’s identity was one of the most open secrets that Peter ever had the pleasure of stumbling across. 

The headliners were contradictory because the mob boss of Hell’s Kitchen -- a butter and egg man who was known only as Kingpin -- had people in all sorts of news stations. It was easy to sway public opinion for Daredevil when he beat on coincidentally shared enemies, and against Daredevil when he took on Kingpin’s goons. The guy couldn’t be bought, but that didn’t take nudges of persuasions off the table.

But now things were different. The status quo back in the day was a scramble to fill the power vacuum that Osborn left behind -- and four years was plenty of time for someone to have seized it. No offense to Daredevil, but Peter was willing to bet he wasn’t so good as to be able to juggle every goddamn mob boss in town for four godforsaken years. In fact, he liked to think they’d built some kind of camaraderie in that chaos. Before he went off and died, that is.

He could figure out why more folks would want to turn to more drastic measures. It was a kind of comfort that New York City didn’t go down so easy. He couldn’t help but feel a warm sort of pride at that.

If he still had access to the Daily Bugle’s paper archives, he’d head there first. Being dead didn’t exactly do much for job security, though. And he didn’t have any money for any of them sidewalk newspaper kids. Thank god he was an investigative journalist.

“Out,” an asian kid told him when he knocked on Nelson’s door. The familiar smell of smoke escaped when it creaked open. Peter tried not to think about what Miles told him about cigs and cancer. “Mr. Nelson has got plenty of cases to work on right now. Schedule to come back again in a few months, or go do business somewhere else. He’s not in anyway.”

He shouldn’t be surprised that Nelson got a secretary over the years. Fierce one, too. He was small and lanky, but he spoke with a spitfire and bitterly practiced courteousness. He couldn’t have been any older than eighteen.

“I’m not here to see Nelson,” Peter told him. “Is Murdock in?”

The secretary narrowed his eyes up at him, brows scrunched hard with suspicion. He squared his shoulders, and his chest puffed up a little, and Peter thought to himself:  _ Ah. He knows the devil. _

One of them trend followers, then.

He glanced over his shoulder, deferring to someone Peter couldn’t see. He huffed something frustrated, then gestured pointedly at him. He sighed, then stiffly jerked the door open.

“Come in,” he flatly allowed.

“Hey Matt,” he greeted as he came in. The door clicked closed behind him, and he could feel the kid’s cold, stubborn gaze burning into his back. “Long time no see.”

“Hey Peter,” a low, familiar voice responded. It seemed to have a little bit of a lisp now. “Long time never see.”

He snorted, just as the secretary muffled his groan.

“Mr. Murdock.” The door creaked as the kid leaned against it. “Who  _ is _ this guy?”

“Sam, this is Peter. Peter, this is Sam.”

“Hi Sam, I’m Peter.”

The silence was damning.

“This is Spider-Man,” Matt told him after a while, in a teasing apology.

“What? No he isn’t. Mr. Murdock, this man is  _ white. _ Spider-Man is  _ black." _

“No, not that one. Peter’s the original.”

_ Original. _ That was an interesting adjective to use there.

“Murdock,” Peter cut in. “I know I’ve been dead for a few years -- but I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t share that.”

“It helps Sam settle his nerves,” he justified. And that, well. Peter was fine with that. He could get trust issues. He could get the value of honesty. There was also the whole revival thing. That could be understandably disturbing. “What brings you here?”

“I was hoping you’d fill me in. White Widow tells me there’s new vigilantes, now?”

Matt grinned, pearls on full display. Most of them, anyway -- he’d lost one sometime during the past few years. It explained the lisp.

“You don’t even know the half of it,” he enthused, fingers tapping against his cane with giddy glee. That was a sign for Peter to brace himself for a thick wall of words. He took a breath, asked him to go on, and took a seat to warm up.

Sam was a vigilante by the name of Blindspot; he was an acrobat who developed a plethora of visually evasive maneuvers that worked in tandem with smoke bombs. By the time he met Daredevil, he had developed a chemical concoction that would temporarily make him completely undetectable for a few minutes.

“It has  _ nothing _ to do with the Invisible Man film,” the kid insisted. The correlation hadn’t even occurred to him until it was pointed out, but he wasn’t here to poke sticks at bears.

“I believe you,” he lied. He could see Matt doing his damnedest to hide a grin behind his curled fist. “So -- who’s this new Spider-Man?”

Sam’s whole body seemed to jolt in reaction. He set his eyes firmly on him.

“What are you going to do if you find him?” he demanded, with the same protective stance from a few moments ago. “‘Cause if you lay a hand on him--”

“Woah there, kid -- settle down.” Sam squinted hard at him. “I’m not gonna -- why would you think I’d do something like that?”

“When folks first started getting wind of him,” Matt started, “White Widow was furious. He was using the same name, after all -- and this was a few years after you disappeared.”

Peter had a visceral recollection of getting choked out.

“He seems to be under her tutelage now, though.” Hm. Felicia neglected to mention that. Then again, she  _ did _ send him off sooner than it seemed she would like, on account of a meeting she had to rush off to. Or maybe she was rushing off to meet this other Spider-Man? “You’ll do well to visit your old base of operations -- he’s renovated it. Likes to radio a bit too much.”

Alright, then. He made a mental note to do that soon after.

“Anyone else I should know about?”

“So, there’s this sociopathic criminal gang of teens calling themselves the X-Men--”

What? What the fuck?

“They’re in the wind right now,” Sam clarified. “Nothing to blow your wig about.”

“They blew up a  _ blimp,"  _ Matt gushed, “and got  _ away _ with it.”

_ “Anyways,” _ the kid seethed with the sole purpose of cutting him off, “they’re not really  _ relevant _ right now. The only other new guys that stuck around for a while and, I think, still are, are the White Widow, Deadpool, and Moon Knight.”

Alright. Spider-Man, Deadpool, Moon Knight. That’s only three people to research.

“White Widow I know about,” he said. It was technically true -- he had learned of her existence the day before he died, but he’d known the face behind it for years regardless. Nothing much to worry about. “Anything I should know about the others?”

“You can figure it out yourself,” Matt told him. “Foggy’s a few blocks away from returning, and judging from the frown on his face, he’ll get a heart attack if he sees you in here.”

“What, I can’t get a quick summary--”

“You’re an investigative journalist, you’ll figure it out. Scram. Go on. I’ll tell him later. So shoo. Out the window you go. We can catch up later -- Foggy’ll have recovered from his heart attack by then.”

-

“Spider-Man, Deadpool, Moon Knight,” he muttered under his breath, repeating it like a mantra as he swung to his old hideout. There was a certain rhythm to the names, and anyway, it would be inconvenient if they decided to slip out of his mind. He needed to keep on target. “Spider-Man, Deadpool, Moon Knight.”

Spider-Man was someone he could probably make a few safe assumptions about. For one thing, since he took up the same name, that meant he shared the same general ideals. For another, if he'd been bitten by the same spiders and survived, then he wasn't a fascist bastard. That was admittedly a low bar. On another note, seeing as he was under Felicia’s apparent tutelage, then he was at least a decent person. Peter did have to hope a little, though, that he wouldn't be half as ruthless.

The old haunt is empty when he arrives. He slips in easily through the ceiling hatch.

“The fella must’ve oiled the hinges,” he says to nobody in particular. “It doesn’t squeak like it used to."

He takes a web to the ceiling and lowers himself down. It doesn’t look like there’s anybody… down… here…

Peter looks down and sees a little black cat batting at the web he just let down. The silver tag on its collar glints. It mewls up at him when he picks it off the ground.

“Ding-Ding,” he reads off. He looks into its big, wide eyes. He stares intently to make meaningful contact. “That’s a cute name. Were you one of Felicia’s?”

It purrs at him in response. So much for an answer. Looks like the little fella’s a master of evasion.

“Who are you?”

That wasn’t Ding-Ding. When he turns to lay his eyes on what he can only assume is the other Spider-Man, there’s an instinctual familiarity tugging at him.

“You’re like--” the kid squeaks out.

“You’re a kid,” Peter cuts off to say instead. “My god, you’re just a kid.”

Younger than Sam. Sam was an adult at least. But this --

This looked and sounded like Miles.

“So what? Yeah, I’m a kid,” the kid responds, defensive. His shoulders are squared and his chest is puffed up a little. “A kid that’s gonna drop you if you don’t tell me who you are.”

“I’m--”

“And mitts  _ off _ my cat.”

The kid’s all nerves. How long has he been doing this? Scratch that -- how much has he seen?

He lets Ding-Ding hop out of his arms. Its tail waved lazily through the air as it strolled off.

“I’m Spider-Man.”

That made the kid loosen up a little. Then he made fists and slid his foot back, as if just reminding himself that he should very much still be wary.

“Prove it,” he spat.

Peter tugged at the web he came down on. The silence was damning.

“Oh, my god,” the kid moaned into his palms. “You’re  _ Spider-Man. _ Everybody thought you were  _ dead.” _

“Yeah, yeah, big deal --  _ you’re _ a kid,” he pointed out again. “What’re you doing fighting crime  _ alone _ every night?”

“I’m Spider- _ Man, _ not Spider- _ Kid,” _ he groaned, running his hands down his face. “I didn’t fight a war just to have to go through this with everyone I talk to.”

Peter short-circuited. He had to. He had to or he would’ve exploded right then and there, and coming back to life would’ve all been for nothing.

“You  _ what? _ What war?”

The kid scrunched his brows at him. “The Spanish Civil War? The Abraham Lincoln International Brigade? Three years ago? Where have you  _ been?” _

“Dead. You’ve been doing this three years?”

“Dead? No way. Gimme the honest answer.”

“I’ve been  _ dead, _ kid,” he reiterated forcefully. “Something about a Spider God. You might’ve gotten the same vision. Now answer the question.”

The kid stopped to set his jaw. He clenched his fists at his side.

“Big deal,” he said right back at him. “I’m still alive, ain’t I? Doesn’t mean you get to call me a kid when I’m not. I’m almost eighteen. If anything that’s even  _ less _ reason for you to make a huge fuss over nothing.”

What the hell? This kid wasn’t even five feet tall.

“Tell me your real name and I’ll tell you mine when I know it’s actually you. Then we can start over, and we can pretend I didn’t watch you talk to a cat and then freak out at me.”   
  


Peter took a deep breath.

This was fine. He’d talk to Felicia about this later. She was bound to be free by the time this was over.

“Peter Parker.”

The kid took a pause, then responded with, “Miles Mor--”

“Noir?” a voice cut through. That was familiar too, though at least he actually knew this person. “Are you still there?”

The Web Watch. He left it behind when he left; he'd been chided and given a spare to die with.

That was what Daredevil meant when he said the kid radioed too much. He’d been in contact with other spiders.

Jesus, being alive was a lot. He hadn’t even seen Aunt May yet and already his head is filled to the brim with so much goddamn worry, and what -- for a kid he barely even met?

“I’m here,” the kid squeaked, fumbling as he raised his wrist closer to his mouth. “Sorry, I just -- apparently my universe’s Peter is, uh, back from the dead?”

The silence stood still for all of one second.

“NOIR,” voices yammered over each other. It was loud enough that the kid flinched away from his wrist. 

Applesauce, he’s gonna wake up with a hammering headache tomorrow.

-

Peter left to let the kid chatter on with the others. He was getting a headache from the whole thing. He’d check in with the other spider-people later, he had to go meet Felicia now. After he got all that sorted out, he’d research the other vigilantes. Or circle back to Daredevil. Or check in with the kid and his watch.

“The afternoon’s barely over with,” he grumbled to himself as he landed on Felicia’s balcony.

“Back so soon? I would’ve thought you’d be having fun being alive for a little longer.”

“Felicia,” he seethed, “the new Spider-Man is a  _ child.” _

“Ah.” She closed her eyes to take a deep breath, then said, “Peter, he  _ is  _ almost eighteen now.”

“Fifteen when he enlisted, at the  _ oldest.” _

“He was young,” she told him, as if that was supposed to be new information. Then she went on to say, “There’s fascists everywhere here but there’s nothing anyone can do about it,  _ unless _ if they dress up in costumes. Nobody has time for that when they can look for work. Then the Spanish Civil War comes along and suddenly he has the opportunity to do something -- and that seems exactly like the bleeding heart parade you’d be into.”

Alright. Fine. Peter understood that. He could. Injustice and frustration was exactly the thing that launched his life into the direction it did in the first place.

“Glad to see we’re on the same page,” she drawled, watching him resignedly lean against his knees. “You can be so unbelievably idealistic sometimes. It makes you impulsive, you know.”

Peter took offense to that and he let her know so.

“Well, it’s true. I suggest you apologize to him. He feels undermined whenever someone points out how young he is. He’s the farthest thing from inexperienced, if you haven’t gathered that by now.”

“I will,” he promises. “Then we’ll talk about it and get on the right track. Say, I had to leave before I could finish asking Daredevil -- but what’s the criminal world look like? Someone’s bound to have come on top by now.”

_ “You’re _ the investigative reporter.”

“I’m not punchin’ people in alleys ‘til they give me a history lesson on the past four goddamn years, Felicia.”

She huffed a laugh. “And what’ll you do if I tell you? Punch the problem until it goes away? You’ve already done that once.”

“Okay. It’s alright if you don’t tell me,” he resolved. “I’ll do it anyway if I gotta. All I need is the evidence and I’ll send it over to the Bugle. There’s a reason why the news is never gonna go out of business, you know.”

“You’re so recklessly optimistic, Pete,” she told him, and it’s meant to be bittersweet. “There are some days when I wish you’re right, you know.”

“Well, I  _ am _ right.”

She snorted, and leaned in to bluntly murmur, “Your conviction isn’t as cute when it’s already killed you.”

And what was he supposed to say to that? She was technically right.

It was what killed Urich. It was how Robbie turned into a vegetable. There was precedence to that worry. It was probably why she apparently tutored Miles.

She was a good person, even if she didn’t intend to be.

“I’m just trying to leave the world better than I found it,” he tries, and it feels like something lifted off from a movie. “Same as you. It’s only natural that it doesn’t run as smoothly as we’d like.”

“Sure, but that’s easy to do. You try too hard to do too much.” She patted him lightly on the cheek. “I have work to do. You have a kid to apologize to.”

Peter sighed something that was suddenly very tired.

“Take a hike, Pete.”

**Author's Note:**

> imagine being an illegal teen vet and chilling in your cool abandoned warehouse with ur coolass future tech u found on the floor but then a zombie walks in and calls u a baby. wyd


End file.
